Zakir musaMarch 19
Speculations are on rise about the rebel-HM Commander, Zakir Rashid Bhat alias Musa, once always in public limelight has completely disappeared from the public domain.
Zakir, 25, who hails from the Noorpora area of South Kashmir’s Tral and was a close associate of popular Militant commander, Burhan wani had joined Militancy in 2013. Musa, a Btech student at Chandigarh who joined the militant group Hizbul Mujahideen parted ways from it in July 2017, the Global Islamic Media Front claimed that Zakir Musa had been named the head of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a newly created cell of Al-Qaeda.
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Zakir Musa comes from from a well-to-do family and was good in academics. He really liked his iPhones and iPods, loved riding his Yamaha R15 fast and dressed in the latest fashion.
The 25 year old student who gained prominence in Kashmir as his slogans reverberated on Kashmir streets, in funerals, in graffiti, in protests, on Airports and even in exam halls lost six militants associated him during an encounter in last December at Tral in South Kashmir.
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In this encounter, his deputy Saliha Mohammed Akhoon alias Rehan Khan was also killed.
Zakir started the AGH group with a total of 13 associates, many of whom were killed during encounters with Government Forces, mostly in South Kashmir.
At the funeral of his Six associates in last December, three youngsters from the same area went missing, who police suspect could have joined Musa. But the cops later said that two of them came back and only one is missing. Last year around 191 locals have joined militant ranks.
Zakir Musa and Riyaz Naikoo are the only two Militant commanders left out of the first List of 12 Most Wanted Militants framed by Indian Army in mid-2017. Zakir Musa last year figured as the Most wanted Militant commander from the Kashmir valley.
“Musa’s faction has only four people left, even though he has the potential to recruit. But he cannot make an impact on the ground because of lack of organisational support and the overall hot pursuit against militants,” a top police official said.
Once always in Public gaze, the death of his deputy, Rehan Khan, who was in command of all the operations and recruitment, as per Police, is the key reason to Zakir’s disappearance from the public domain. The last time his audio appeared on Social media was around August last year when he disassociated himself from the global Islamist outfit, ISIS.
“I have nothing to do with Daesh (ISIS) or Abu Baqr Al Baghdadi, i fight for Allah and i do not have have anyone’s support,” Musa had said. In this audio clip released in in August 2018, the civil engineer turned Militant, cleared the air and described himself as treading the path of Mir Syed Ali Hamdani, the famous Sufi saint from modern day Iran credited with popularizing Islam in Kashmir valley in the 14th century.
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The last time Musa was seen was in Punjab as per Intel agencies, however Local Police believes that it is unlikely that Musa was in Punjab, however his role in Punjab bombings has been confirmed by Police as well.
As a consequence, three students and alleged workers of Ansar Ghawzat Ul-Hind were arrested in Punjab. The Punjab police are convinced the three Kashmiri students belong to the group, but their counterparts in Kashmir are less sure.
Posters of Musa had earlier been put up in the frontier districts of Gurdaspur and Amritsar in November following similar reports that he could be hiding in Punjab.
“We have found nothing concrete on his locations or his movements since more than a year now, he has not been meeting people or anyone, not even his once closest OGWs,” a police officer requesting anonymity said.
It gets tough for a Militants hide for a long, but Musa’s life as a Militant, and his organization AGH has been able to go into hiding for a long, “It is not that we are not trying to trace him, but we have found nothing, we have found him nowhere,”
“yes recently, we received a tip off about him hiding in a residential house at his native in Noorpora Tral, however Forces after conducting search operations in the houses, found nothing, similarly, on August 11 last year, the forces had confirmed inputs about his presence in Noorpora, after 19 hours, we believe he escaped,” the Official said.
Meanwhile theories around the disappearance of Zakir Musa are doing rounds amid various sections of Kashmir including the journalist fraternity. ”He might have been killed during an encounter, we do not know, there have been encounters where militants remained unidentified,” a Journalist from South Kashmir told The Kashmiriyat.
Amid this disappearance, youth of Kashmir, especially those who support Zakir Musa are left roaming around theories and rumours. There are also theories that Zakir is not meeting anybody. “It is almost getting impossible to find him with every passing day, he has not contacted even the closest of his aides and associates,” Sources told The Kashmiriyat.
Musa’s presence and absence is hardly bothering agencies though, as Militant recruitment has been on high and crossed the highest mark in the past decade when it reached to 191 Local youth being recruited into Militant groups. (The Kashmiriyat)